Chemical laser systems are known to have the capability of generating high energy laser beams. One such system is the chemical oxygen iodine laser known as "COIL" which is particularly suitable for weapons systems because of its range and the ability to control the high intensity beam to a target responsive to mobile target surveillance techniques.
The operation of the COIL involves a basic hydrogen peroxide ("BHP") dispersed into a reactor as highly dispersed liquid droplets. Chlorine gas is then mixed with an inert carrier gas and reacted with the BHP to generate and the singlet-delta oxygen. The reaction product flows out of the singlet oxygen generator ("SOG") and passed into the laser gain generator. Singlet-delta oxygen is denoted by symbol O.sub.2.sup.*. In the gain generator the O.sub.2.sup.* reacts with iodine. The energy is extracted as coherent laser radiation in an optical cavity transverse to the flow of the reactants in the cavity. The chemistry of the COIL system is described in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/762,180, pending, filed in the name of Charles Clendenning, et al. and is assigned to the same assignee as the instant application. The architecture of a suitable apparatus to implement the chemical process for generating the high energy beam requires several different modular systems such as the SOG, thermal management system of the basic hydrogen peroxide solution, a fluid supply system, a pressure recovery system, and the gain generator system. The general architecture is described in the co-pending patent application filed of even date herewith under Ser. No. 08/762,180, pending, and is assigned to the same assignee as this application.
The invention in this application is directed to the control of fluid namely the O.sub.2.sup.* from the SOG to the laser gain generator in a non-rectilinear path which, unless modified, introduces variations in uniformity of the flow rate as the O.sub.2.sup.* courses over sharp bends in the feed line. Considering the size and complexity of the apparatus once the various modules are assembled together it becomes necessary to fold the system in order to install it in a suitable mobile carrier such as an airplane or large truck. In order to avoid stretching out the apparatus in a straight line (to avoid disturbances in the fluid flow) the SOG and the gain generator system arranged in a parallel juxtaposition to one another so that the out feed of the O.sub.2.sup.* and the in feed reside in different nonaligned planes that necessitate a sharp turn in order to feed the O.sub.2.sup.* from the SOG to the gain generator module.
A 90.degree. turn in the feed line results in varying the rate of flow of the reactive O.sub.2.sup.* across the cross-sectional area of the feed line. At the turn the O.sub.2.sup.* experiences an increase in pressure at the large radius turn portion of the feed line and a decrease at the small radius turn. This also results in flow separation along the wall. The thermodynamic reaction energy with the iodine is such that as the active iodine encounters different flow rates of oxygen at the center of the feed line compared to the inside boundaries of the feed line walls it results in density fluctuations in the reaction chamber. This can adversely affect the quality of the laser beam by diffusing or spreading the beam pattern.
Another problem that is encountered in the architecture of these systems is the valve control for opening the feed line to supply the O.sub.2.sup.* to the gain generator and to effectively shut down the system. The use of conventional valves such a gate valve, results in incrementally opening the cross section of the feed line that could also affect the quality of the beam in that the O.sub.2.sup.* is fed in at different rates during the time it takes to completely open the feed line.
Previously known architectures for generating high energy chemical laser beams usable to engage incoming hostile missiles have presented problems in terms of requiring serially stringing out the processing modules which hampers the transportability of the system for the reason that they require unusually large vehicles, either airborne or land based.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome one or more of the problems.